


Dragon Age: The Calling

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, Loss, Love, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 16:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twenty five years of being together, Anders is forced to leave Hawke when he hears the voices of the darkspawn drawing him into the Deep Roads. Hawke, however, follows after his lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon Age: The Calling

_I’m gone. Please don't come after me, love. I told you, when we first met, that I had escaped the Wardens, but of course I knew that it wasn't true. Even then, I understood that a person can never fully escape, can never be free of the taint, or the maddening call. When I ventured with you into the Vimmark Mountains, I had hoped to rid myself of that stain, to cleanse my blood. I was a fool; but then, I was painfully young then, and as were you._

_When I felt Corypheus calling to me, I knew. I knew that there was no escaping the wicked taint inside of me. I knew that, and still I followed after you. Still, I loved you -- I love you -- more than I could ever tell you. For twenty-five years I've been loving you, I've been praying to the Maker to spare me from this... As though the Maker would listen to my pleas, as though the Maker would not see me as the abomination that I am._

_Don’t chase after me, my love. Let me at least die with some measure of dignity; let me at least make some kind of peace. The judgment I face will be harsh, I know that. But I will go into it knowing that you at least saw some worth in me. That you, at least, found something worth loving in me._

_You have been faithful to the point of blindness, Samuel. Please. For once, please, do not be a hero._

_Yours,  
Anders_

****

Do not a hero, Anders had written. Do not chase after me. 

Hawke huffed as he climbed the mountains, the wind sharp and cold against his face. He trembled down to his bones, but each bite of cold only strengthened his resolve. Years before, he might have scaled the mountain with ease, but he was not the young man he had once been. 

There was gray at his temples and wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes. His bones creaked, as the bones of older folk were wont to do, but none of that mattered. He climbed with a fire in his heart, a fire that held the passion and strength of a young man. The Frostback Mountains might as well have been a simple hill to that fire. 

He cursed Anders, cursed him as a fool, cursed him as a coward. And all the while, he cursed himself for ever believing things could ever be different. Hawke knew very little about the Wardens, about their Joining, about the eventuality of their existence. Anders had spoken little of the Wardens fate, and what Hawke had learned from Larius during their adventures in the old Warden prison had only confused him more. 

Anders had only told him that one day he would be gone, that ‘the Calling’ would pull him towards Orzammar, towards where the dwarves fought their endless battle with the darkspawn. Past that, Anders never spoke of being a Warden, and he never spoke of the awful nightmares that sometimes forced him to tremble against Hawke’s body in the night. 

All Hawke knew was that he couldn't lose him. To even think of it made his body and his heart terribly cold. 

The fool, the _coward_. The helpless, hopeless _idiot_. 

Hawke loved him, in a way that, like Anders, he could never fully express. He could think only of all they had seen, all they had _done_ , all they had caused. They had changed history together, had seen the Circles rise up as one cohesive unit, had watched Thedas plunge into a nasty civil war. And they had stood, side by side, as at long last the mages had stood triumphant, and the Templars had fallen. 

He remembered Anders, standing in the fading sunlight with the wind on his face and in his hair. He had been smiling and crying. And he had whispered, “It’s a terrible victory. It tastes so _bitter_.” 

Hawke had sacrificed so much for him, had done so many things that his heart and his soul had cried out against. Anders, too, had sacrificed, had given himself over to Hawke and allowed himself to be tempered, to be _tamed_. 

Twenty-five years was a long time to love someone. Too long to let them go without so much as a goodbye. Hawke wanted to feel indignant, he wanted to feel betrayed, but he couldn't seem to muster anything but tired resolve as he climbed the mountains and felt the cold sink down into him. 

_He will break your heart_ , someone had told him, though Hawke had long forgotten who that had been. _He's a selfish man, a dangerous man_.

Anders was selfish, he was dangerous. And yes, on more than one occasion, he had broken Hawke’s heart. Yet he always seemed to heal it the best, he always seemed to be the only one who could give Hawke a reason to keep going, to keep _trying_.

Hawke climbed, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the clang of hammers as the dwarves worked their forges. Beyond that, there would be hungry growls of the ‘spawn from their lairs in the Deep Roads.

Beyond that...

Anders. Hawke could feel it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Title:** The Calling  
>  **Word Count:** 891  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Disclaimer:** Dragon Age II and all related characters (c) Bioware
> 
>  
> 
> Open-ended. Sorta up to the reader what happens. Of course, there's no real rescue from the Calling, is there? :\
> 
> I haven't had much drive to write lately, so this is my way of getting back into the groove. Of course, I had to write something DAII related... What else? xD Anyway, I've been thinking about Anders and Hawke years after what happened in Kirkwall (also might coincide with that DAII AU I've been messing around with for the past couple of months) and this is what I came up with.
> 
> Anders expects Hawke to sit at home and let him go die? Pffff. _Don't be a hero_. Yeah, okay Anders, keep dreaming.


End file.
